Most days, I get at least one offer of a ride. Perhaps half the time, I get two. Usually, I offer a thumbs up and a quick explanation of what I’m doing. Occasionally, this results in a conversation, as the people making the offer are friendly, curious, and excited to learn more.
For the most part, my response is automatic. But I confess that sometimes, once in a great while, the temptation is real. Today was one of those occasions. It’s not just that the walk was uneventful and rather painful, with my feet not yet recovered from the new-shoe-snafu. No, the bigger source of temptation was that the offer came from a woman driving a potato truck. All day long, I had watched these large trucks, carrying heaping mounds of potatoes, stacked well above the container line, go flying past me. Here was a chance to be part of Operation Spudnik! But still, the walk had to go on, so with some immediate regrets, I passed on the golden opportunity.
Of course, the Idaho-Potato connection is unshakeable, and the state and the spud are virtually synonymous. That reputation is grounded in fact. Idaho outpaces every other state in potato production, with only Washington posing even a respectable challenge. When Oregon dared to make the potato the official state vegetable last year–to the joy of every kid who ever told their parents that french fries qualified as veggies–Idahoans quickly rallied to “defend the honor” of their state spud.
That got me wondering, though: what makes Idaho the potato paradise that it is? Clearly, wheat and corn grow here; I passed by fields devoted to both today. But potatoes are king. What’s up with that?
My walk won’t lead me through the town of Blackfoot, but fortunately its cultural treasure, the Idaho Potato Museum, has a strong online presence. The man credited with the first potato planting in Idaho is Rev. Henry Spaulding, back in the 1840s. However, after Narcissa and Marcus Whitman were killed, he fled the region, taters and all. Instead, Idaho’s potato heritage has its roots in Salt Lake City, where the first crop was planted in 1847. As the Utah settlement unfolded, different groups of pioneers were sent outside of the Salt Lake valley in order to launch new communities, and one such group, led by William Goforth Nelson, headed north. Unwittingly, they crossed the border into Idaho, where they are credited for planting the first potato crop in an area where the settlement–and the crop–were maintained moving forward.
The potato performed very well in Idaho, especially in the areas flanking the Snake River, and the harvests proved to be quite lucrative. In the US Department of Agriculture’s first survey of the region in 1882, they estimated that 2000 acres were under cultivation, generating $250,000 in value. By 1930, Idaho’s national reputation for spud production was already well established. The quintessential Idaho potato is the Russet Burbank, first developed in 1872. The original was smooth; the rough-skinned Russet we still have today was a mutant that proved to be more blight-resistant. In 1940, the JR Simplot Company became the first in the world to produce a commercially viable frozen french fry.
The Idaho Potato Commission insists that Idaho’s potatoes taste better. In their words, “Idaho’s growing season of warm days and cool nights, combined with plenty of mountain-fed irrigation and rich volcanic soil, produce the unique texture, taste, and dependable performance that keep customers asking for more.” All told, 13 billion pounds of potatoes are harvested annually in Idaho, grown across 311,000 acres. Good thing, too, because the average American eats 124 pounds of potatoes annually. Sad to say, though, we don’t hold a candle to the Germans, who eat almost twice as much!
